Chapter 12
Chapter twelve
Claire
Claire had been working at the village shop for a week—four days a week, anyway—and she was starting to feel as if she’d gotten the hang of it.
She could manage the till, and Dan had even taught her the trick about Lottery cards and cigarettes and how to add the tax.
She’d survived the rush of schoolchildren every afternoon, and Eleanor Carwell’s beady precision every morning.
She didn’t particularly enjoy stacking newspapers or milk, but after a while she could appreciate the steady rhythm, and at the end of the week, when Dan paid her, she felt satisfied if surprised at the small amount.
“I did tell you it was minimum wage,” he said, and Claire realized she must have looked disappointed.
“Yes, of course you did.” She tucked the check into her bag. “Thank you.”
“That will buy a pair of shoes, I suppose?” Dan said without looking at her. Claire couldn’t tell if he was being serious or not.
“Maybe one shoe,” she answered flippantly as she went back to dusting the tins on the shelves.
In London and Portugal she’d spent hundreds of pounds on a single pair of shoes at a time.
Her parents had been giving her a clothing allowance since she was thirteen.
It hadn’t stopped when she’d graduated from university or gotten a job; she hadn’t thought about it either way.
She had just expected the money to be there, and it had been.
The realization made her feel uncomfortably guilty now.
Maybe she really was the spoiled princess Dan and Rachel and who knew who else seemed to think she was.
“So one shoe,” Dan answered. “Maybe you can buy the other one next week.”
So maybe he could joke, after all. Claire took a deep breath. “You really do have me pegged as some spoiled rich girl, don’t you?”
“Can you deny it?”
“No, I don’t suppose I can. No one can help what they were. But I’m trying to be independent now. To change.” She’d been dusting the tins, taking her time with each one. “Do you know this tin of lamb stew with minty peas has been here since I started?”
“You mean one week?”
“How long have you been running this shop?”
“Three years.”
“And in all that time,” Claire asked, hefting the tin aloft, “has anyone bought a tin of lamb stew with minty peas?”
Dan stared at her, his arms folded. “How am I supposed to remember something like that?”
“I’d remember.” Claire put the tin back on the shelf. “I can’t imagine wanting to eat an entire meal that comes out of a single tin.”
“It’s convenient.”
Appalled realization rushed through her. “Oh. Is that what you . . . ?”
“I can cook,” Dan answered shortly. “But don’t judge it. A lot of the old folks find these tins helpful. They can’t manage to cook for themselves anymore.”
“Oh.” She stared at him in surprise. He’d almost sounded sensitive.
“Right. I suppose I didn’t think of that.
” But since she’d started in the shop, no one had bought any of it.
Not the lamb stew or treacle pudding or the Fray Bentos “Boozy” steak and ale pie, which came in a pie-shaped tin with a lid you peeled back.
She decided not to point that out to Dan.
She’d been in a surprisingly good mood these last few days, almost buoyant. Andrew had left for Manchester several days ago, and it wasn’t until his Lexus had disappeared down the lane that she’d realized how oppressive she’d found his well-meant concern.
Her mother had called only once yesterday, and Claire had actually listened to the voice mail.
She hadn’t flinched when she’d heard her mother’s needling tone, demanding she ring her back, saying that Andrew had told her she’d found “a little job.” Maybe she’d actually phone her mother back today. She almost felt strong enough.
Yesterday Lucy had come by and invited her into Whitehaven to go shopping over the weekend for craft supplies for the art stall at the Easter Fair.
“Easter Fair?”
“Yes, it’s next week. The school puts on an Easter Fair every year, with stalls and games and all sorts. Best Decorated Egg, a fancy hat competition, you know.”
“Right.” A vague memory had surfaced in her mind like a soap bubble: decorating a hat with Rachel, both of them giggling as they tied a pink ribbon Claire had brought from home around its straw brim.
So much of her school years had been a miserable blur as she’d been caught between her mother’s concern and disappointment, in and out of hospitals with procedures for her ear or illnesses as a result of it.
“Everyone says the Easter Fair is good fun,” Lucy had told her.
“Although I’ve never actually been. I only moved here in August. But Alex said that some of the local businesses and charities come and set up stalls,” Lucy had added.
“The Hangman’s Noose puts on some food, a bookshop in Whitehaven brings some kiddie books to sell, and the Lifeboat Institute does their thing about water safety.
They give away key rings and fridge magnets, that sort of stuff. ”
Now, as Claire dusted a row of tins of hot dogs in brine—yuck—an idea came to her. “Why don’t you do a stall at the Easter Fair?” she asked Dan.
“The what?” It was the end of the day, and Dan was balancing the cash register, an intricate procedure of matching receipts to cash amounts, which Claire had not yet been invited to learn.
“The Easter Fair, up at the primary school. Lucy said a bunch of local businesses set up stalls. Why don’t you?”
He didn’t even look up from the receipts. “Who would run the shop while I was up at the school?”
“I could.”
Dan gave her a quick, quelling glance. “I don’t think so.”
“Don’t you think it’s important to have a presence in the village?” Claire pressed.
“I do have a presence. My shop is on the high street.”
“But a community presence. The shop is almost like a church or a community center, a place where people meet. . . .”
Dan stared at her disbelievingly. “It’s a place to buy things.”
“You could sell sweets and crisps and fizzy drinks up at the school,” Claire suggested. “The kids would love it.”
“I’m sure the head teacher will thank for me that. They’ve banned fizzy drinks from the school.”
“All right, no fizzy drinks, then. But sweets or biscuits or even fruit, for goodness’ sake—”
“No.” Dan’s voice was flat and final, even for him.
Claire took a deep breath. “Why not?”
“Because I don’t want to.”
“You don’t want to get to know people?”
“No.”
She fell silent, because there wasn’t much she could say to that.
And really, why should she argue for him to have a stall at the fair?
She didn’t want to get to know people, either.
At least, she hadn’t before. But in the two weeks since she’d been in Hartley-by-the-Sea she’d gotten to know people anyway.
Lucy and Juliet and Abby, and even prickly Eleanor Carwell and the handful of schoolkids who came in.
The boy who had tried to nick the sweets on her first day now smiled at her when he came into the shop.
Claire hoped he wasn’t pulling a con and still stealing sweets.
When she thought of the wide array of shallow friends she’d had in Portugal—all of them really Hugh’s friends, with tinkling laughs and hard eyes—she felt as if she’d actually put down some roots here. Thin, little things, perhaps, but still. Roots.
“I could do the Easter Fair.”
Dan stopped counting receipts. “You?”
“Why not?” She lifted her chin in challenge. “It might drum up a little more business.”
He hesitated, then shook his head. “No.”
“But why not?” Claire pressed, and Dan’s expression hardened into its familiar, implacable scowl. She hadn’t seen it for a while, but it still possessed the power to make her fall instantly silent.
“Because I said no.”
She didn’t try to reason with him after that.
The next day she and Lucy took the train into Whitehaven.
It was early April and almost starting to feel like spring, at least when the wind let up for a moment.
Claire had forgotten how green everything became in Cumbria, thanks to the rain.
The grass looked almost fluorescent, and the leaves on the trees were bright against the blue sky.
“I remember doing this in school,” Claire said as they watched the sheep-dotted fields stream by for the seven-minute journey into town. “Honestly, I don’t know what we actually did in Whitehaven. Walk around in too-high heels and try on all the lipsticks at Boots, I suppose.”
“That’s right. Abby said you were one of the in girls,” Lucy recalled with a rueful smile. “I have to say, I never knew how that felt.”
“I’m not sure I did, either.”
“What do you mean?”
Claire shrugged, wishing she hadn’t mentioned school. “I just went with the crowd. They chose me, and so I followed.”
Lucy looked at her curiously. “But didn’t it feel good to be chosen?”
“It had nothing to do with me,” Claire said bluntly. “If your parents are rich and put on parties for your class, you’re pretty much guaranteed to be popular.”
“I don’t know about that,” Lucy answered. “My mother was well off and she put on a birthday party for my class when I was six. I still wasn’t popular.”
Claire shook her head. “It didn’t mean anything. I never felt like they were really my friends.”
“So why did you stay with them, then?”
She shrugged. “Because it was easier. Not the best reason, I know, but school was hard for me. I was ill a lot of the time as a child, and I didn’t feel very . . .” She blew out a breath. “With it.”
“Ill?” Lucy frowned in sympathy. “I’m sorry.”
Claire shrugged again. “It was a long time ago.”